Devon & Cornwall Backyard Ultra 2022

This weekend just gone saw me spend 24 hours down at the Newnham Estate in Plympton photographing the first Devon & Cornwall Backyard Ultra event, in aid of Bowel Cancer West. If you have never heard of the concept, stand by!

Run 4.167 miles every hour, on the hour until there is one runner left. Think of it like an extreme beep test

The eventual winner lasted an impressive 16 laps from 6pm Friday evening through to 10am Saturday morning. This is a distance of 66.67miles!

There was also three other different running events held being the 50 miles, 25 miles and 12.5 miles.

Every runner has earned my respect and I was massively impressed with their drive and commitment especially experiencing all the different weather conditions Mother Nature threw at them.I alone managed to put in 36k steps during my shoot and I can safely say my feet felt it the following day while I was editing!

Champions!!!

Its been awhile since I last shot some sports photography with other projects getting in the way but this weekend just passed I was asked to come along to Bickleigh barracks and home team Mainstone FC to capture some images for them as they hopefully only needed 1 point to win the league on their first attempt. Over the past few months I decided to sell all my Nikon gear which served me very well over the past several years and transfer over to the Sony brand so I was excited to put my A7r4 and the Sony 70-200 2.8 G Master to the test. I hoping for a break in the weather as from around midday all I had was rain, more rain and even more rain. There was the odd break and some sun did manage to pop through the clouds but that was always short lived.

Playing second in the league means the game is hopefully a fairly matched affair with both sides certainly not wanting to be on the losing side and walking away disappointed. The first 10/15 minutes was a edgy start with neither side showing any real gamble. Mainstone did take the lead though and this seemed to open the game up. I deduced to shoot the majority of the game with the sun behind me so when it did break I didn’t get any harsh light. I managed to capture a varying array of images throughout the match which saw Maidstone eventually winning 5-1 and crowned champions. They loved the images so much I was asked back to photograph their last match next week where they eventually get to lift the trophy which was well deserved for their hard work throughout the season.

All images were presented to them on my online client gallery within 2 hours of getting home and online for all to see that very evening.

Hard work and perseverance equals rewards!

At last....back to some normality.......

Now restrictions are starting to relax, i’ve taken the opportunity to start shooting some more portraiture work and last week I had 2 shoots booked with 2 wonderful clients. Monday saw me down at the very pictureque Royal William Yard shooting a young aspiring model. Considering her limited experience (which only comes with time and she will have plenty of that) she did a fantastic job and was soon in her stride rocking the poses! I had brought my OCF equipment with me and was planning to use it but as I was unpacking the car the light was perfect to shoot some natural light portraits and a quick change in plan and I decided to leave the kit in the car. We spent most of the time around the back end of the facilities where there is some real character and beautiful tones to the buildings. It’s amazing how quickly time flies and soon enough I had plenty of images to come with and work through.

Check out below some of my images

My second shoot was with a repeat client who is a sewing sorceress who can conjure up all sorts of fantastic and amazing garments for herself and her lovely family. She recently made this awesome black and white dress and wanted some images to accompany her upcoming blog for her social media channels. We chose to venture down to Marsh Mills roundabout where they have this area under the flyover covered in all sorts of outstanding graffiti art. Its been little while since we have shot together due to the restrictions with Covid but after 5 minutes, it felt like it was only the week before and not before long, we were smashing out the poses and filling up the SD cards quick! As the light is fairly flat and low down there, I took my OCF equipment from @pixapro (who I must say their service over the last few years of me purchasing their equipment has been exemplary) which consisted of a Citi600 battery powered strobe and the 25.5” rice bowl soft box. For mobility this pairing is ideal and is easy to move around and adjust according. it gives an incredible ‘pop’ feel to the shots and stands the client out away from the surrounding. After a welcome cup of tea break we shot for another hour putting the world to rest and then packed up and headed home

Here is a few images from that shoot

Queen's Gambit Theme with Sophie

With the national lockdown over for now and being replaced with local restrictions meant I could now dust the camera off and get back to shooting. One programme I binged watch recently was Netflix’s The Queens Gambit and throughly enjoyed it. I knew I had a shoot coming up with local model Sophie so we decided to combine the shoot with a tribute to the programme.

I was very fortunate to be granted use of the Imperial Hotel, Plymouth as my venue and was allowed free rein using multiple rooms including the lounge, bar and bedrooms to set my scenes and shoot whilst maintaining safe Covid 19 measures

Using stills from the programme as prompts and acquired props we set out different scenarios combined with a loose 60s fashion theme with a modern feel.

Lighting wise, instead of using natural light which often changed rapidly throughout the day I used a pixapro CITI600 battery strobe with a deep octa para soft box allowing me to ‘pop’ Sophie out while retaining a soft light on her and with the light being versatile I was able to re position it where I needed it to be depending on the location without the need for wired power.

Here are just a few images from my shoot.

Stay safe

Jamie